A token-booth clerk with a penchant for motorcycles took the Transit Authority for a $327,000 ride in the largest MetroCard scam on record, officials said yesterday.

Vincent Cappuccio, 29, was arrested while working the late-night shift at the Kew Gardens station in Queens yesterday.

Since January 1999, cops say, Cappuccio created more than 9,000 MetroCards worth from $17 to $90 each, then sold them to riders and pocketed the cash.

He attempted to cover his tracks by tampering with the token booth computer, cops said.

In a single night — Jan. 4 this year — Cappuccio allegedly banged out 1,810 MetroCards worth $38,500.

Cappuccio, who is engaged to be married next month, sold the MetroCards during his regular shifts in TA token booths, cops said.

“It was all a clear profit for him,” said Sgt. Jack Cassidy, commanding officer of the Transit Bureau’s special investigations unit, which was tipped to the scam by TA officials.

After adding value to a batch of MetroCards, Cappuccio broke into a locked compartment to reboot the token booth computer, thinking that would wipe out any record of his activities, officials said.

But the records were picked up by the TA’s main computers.

Joe Hoffman, the TA’s vice president for subways, said the scam was discovered when agency officials sat down and tried to figure out ways to cheat the MetroCard system.

“We actually found a fix before we found out there was a problem,” Hoffman said.

The officials discovered a $170,000 shortfall in the

MetroCard balance sheet from this January alone — all out of the Kew Gardens station.

Undercover cops nabbed Cappuccio shortly after midnight when he allegedly sold them $114 worth of the bogus cards.

He was charged with grand larceny, computer tampering, falsifying business records and possession of a weapon. Cops say Cappuccio had a knife on him when he was arrested.

Cappuccio, who divides his time between his sister’s home in Ronkonkoma, L.I., and his mother’s house in Elmhurst, Queens, was jailed in lieu of $200,000 bail.

“He’s innocent, of course,” said lawyer Gerald McMahon. He said Cappuccio’s family would put up their homes to make bail for him.

“He was always a good kid. Nothing like this ever happened before,” said a woman at the mother’s house who said she was his aunt.

Investigators froze Cappuccio’s $23,000 bank account. They haven’t accounted for the rest of the money, but he recently bought a new Harley-Davidson, a GMC Suburban and a boat. He also owns a Honda motorcycle.

The TA suspended Cappuccio without pay from his $41,000-a-year job.

Cappuccio, with the TA since 1993, worked as a “floater,” filling in at stations around the city.